Picture this: FF announces that it has successfully tested a p-B11 generator, and is gearing up to produce and license them to all comers.

As an existing or potential stock market investor, how much of your money are you going to leave/put in oil, automotive, transportation, or similar shares? If you own, say, $1M of Exxon, how much will it be worth tomorrow?

It would, of course, take years to build out the FF infrastructure to replace power plants and so on, but just knowing that oil has no future will hammer the value of MAJOR players on the world financial scene. Stock prices for many business types will plummet, and the “money” will have simply vanished.

Well if energy is cheap and owned by FF, then some major markets are still available for investment:
1)Intelectual property
2)Manufacturing
3)Utilities
4)Raw materials
5)Commodities
6)Food production
something more?

Intelectual property is under attack from open source and piracy. While the second one might get reduced, the first one will get just worse.
Manufacturing will also become something you can do at home, in the long term. Look at the goals of http://www.reprap.org .

From the rest I would invest in Raw materials, as cheap energy should allow to get raw materials much cheaper, even those that are high in demand. For example you can get gold from salt water, its just not economical with current energy prices.

Utilities should be a good investment in the short term, as energy prices for the consumer wont fall very fast, and most of the profits will be collected there.

Commodities an Food production markets are overbooked IMHO, and cheap energy is not likelly to affect them fast. Of course in time prices will fall, after raw materials and energy become cheaper, but I would question the availability of profits there.

And of course you should want to invest into FF infrastructure development, that should be a gold mine in short term.

Well if energy is cheap and owned by FF, then some major markets are still available for investment:
1)Intelectual property
2)Manufacturing
3)Utilities
4)Raw materials
5)Commodities
6)Food production
something more?

Intelectual property is under attack from open source and piracy. While the second one might get reduced, the first one will get just worse.
Manufacturing will also become something you can do at home, in the long term. Look at the goals of http://www.reprap.org .

From the rest I would invest in Raw materials, as cheap energy should allow to get raw materials much cheaper, even those that are high in demand. For example you can get gold from salt water, its just not economical with current energy prices.

Utilities should be a good investment in the short term, as energy prices for the consumer wont fall very fast, and most of the profits will be collected there.

Commodities an Food production markets are overbooked IMHO, and cheap energy is not likelly to affect them fast. Of course in time prices will fall, after raw materials and energy become cheaper, but I would question the availability of profits there.

And of course you should want to invest into FF infrastructure development, that should be a gold mine in short term.

My 2c

All good thoughts; but you might like to check out some of the analyses which consider the energy input for food production. It’s considerable, all the way from the agri-end (cultivation and fertilizer production and application) to transportation to storage (think refrigeration) and distribution. Energy is the currency you can’t avoid spending.

All good thoughts; but you might like to check out some of the analyses which consider the energy input for food production. It’s considerable, all the way from the agri-end (cultivation and fertilizer production and application) to transportation to storage (think refrigeration) and distribution. Energy is the currency you can’t avoid spending.

I get this much, but I don’t see profits here because of the huge amount of competition.
Basically what can happen, if producing food gets cheaper - prices will fall everywhere.
Unless a specific region adopts FF faster, which means it becomes more competitive.

Of course if transporting food all over the world is cheap, it means investing into regions where the production is cheapest makes the most sense.
So basically south africa? Deforestation is gonna get worse.

All good thoughts; but you might like to check out some of the analyses which consider the energy input for food production. It’s considerable, all the way from the agri-end (cultivation and fertilizer production and application) to transportation to storage (think refrigeration) and distribution. Energy is the currency you can’t avoid spending.

I get this much, but I don’t see profits here because of the huge amount of competition.
Basically what can happen, if producing food gets cheaper - prices will fall everywhere.
Unless a specific region adopts FF faster, which means it becomes more competitive.

Of course if transporting food all over the world is cheap, it means investing into regions where the production is cheapest makes the most sense.
So basically south africa? Deforestation is gonna get worse.

There should be lots more room for “gross margin” before hitting buyer resistence, at least. Cultivation is, of course, only a small fraction of retail pricing, but the distribution side will get lots of new “margin” to work with, too.

I think that the ones with first and best access to the cheaper energy will have the “competitive advantage”.

As far as deforestation goes, it’s a response in the tropics to cash economy agriculture trying to make fast money from, e.g., cane or other biofuels or slash-and-burn grazing, etc. (Most of the Northern Hemisphere is as heavily forested now as it was 200+ years ago, overall.) Efficiency will benefit all farmers in many ways, mostly by improving yields and profit from existing land. Distribution should become much cheaper, too. The U.S. has long paid many farmers not to grow, in order not to swamp the market. This has gradually come to be a distorted cash-cow for agribusiness as it manipulated the system, but the point remains that U.S. efficiency is pretty decent.

Further, the Israeli model of desert irrigation should become much more prevalent. Maybe the Sahara will grow grain again!

There are lots of hidden issues; there is risk of local producers being swamped by cheap “globalized” food distribution. Food aid, e.g., typically drives locals out of business because they can’t compete with free.

As each product, food included, that benefits from the energy price drop gets cheaper, this frees up resources, cash, and “human energy” to get involved in more things. What would you do if your personal cost of living as you now do dropped 40%? There’s a kind of implicit de facto deflation involved there.

Picture this: FF announces that it has successfully tested a p-B11 generator, and is gearing up to produce and license them to all comers.

As an existing or potential stock market investor, how much of your money are you going to leave/put in oil, automotive, transportation, or similar shares? If you own, say, $1M of Exxon, how much will it be worth tomorrow?

It would, of course, take years to build out the FF infrastructure to replace power plants and so on, but just knowing that oil has no future will hammer the value of MAJOR players on the world financial scene. Stock prices for many business types will plummet, and the “money” will have simply vanished.

When FF is proven, where would/will you/others invest?

There is no reason why transportation and automotive should suffer. Perhaps the other way around. Both are now being hit hard because of the high price of fuels. Obviously they should change to the new energies.

Picture this: FF announces that it has successfully tested a p-B11 generator, and is gearing up to produce and license them to all comers.

As an existing or potential stock market investor, how much of your money are you going to leave/put in oil, automotive, transportation, or similar shares? If you own, say, $1M of Exxon, how much will it be worth tomorrow?

It would, of course, take years to build out the FF infrastructure to replace power plants and so on, but just knowing that oil has no future will hammer the value of MAJOR players on the world financial scene. Stock prices for many business types will plummet, and the “money” will have simply vanished.

When FF is proven, where would/will you/others invest?

There is no reason why transportation and automotive should suffer. Perhaps the other way around. Both are now being hit hard because of the high price of fuels. Obviously they should change to the new energies.

Yes, “suffer” isn’t the right term. But disruptive technologies disrupt. The vast bulk of the manufacturing plant for t&a;is based on making ICE engines etc. What will be the consequence of its accelerating obsolescence?

Two excellent investments come immediately to mind given this scenario.

The first is one of the companies which will be building these devices. Current short term plans are to sell licences for manufacture of these, and not to build them ourselves. I think profit margins of the first hundred thousand or so of these which are produced will be huge. These will go to remote locations where fuel availability is low and transportation is expensive. Think how beneficial one of these would be at the base near the south pole. Diesel fuel for their generators there has to be flown in at I’m sure a tremendous cost.

The second are very energy intensive industries. The primary one of these is Aluminum manufacturers. Other electrochemical companies are also heavy electricity users. Like chlorine manufacturers. And, as Brian mentioned, fertilizer manufacturers. Specifically ammonia producers.

Raw material prices could go either way. If I were a mine owner in a remote location. I’d buy a DPF device and build a ore processing and smelting facility right at mine site; instead of transporting the ore for hundreds of miles to process. This will not only reduce their costs, but it will also make some ore deposits which could not previously be economically available.

Shipping will certainly be an investment opportunity. The first shipyards to incorporate these into there electric drive freighters will make gigabucks.

Jimmy;
Good points. There are cascading consequences, too; it’s really hard to project in any confidence or detail.

What industries/functions do you think would be hurt, besides petrochemicals?

//
Also, I keep fantasizing about using FF to power a visit to a nickle-iron asteroid, and moving it into NEO. A 1-mi diameter ‘roid would yield, with minimal processing, the equivalent of all the precious metals mined in history. And a huge amount of base metals. The value is estimated at around $1,000,000 per capita for the planet.

To answer your question. I think one of the most immediate casulitys will be the coal industry and maybe secondary to that the specific railroads which rely of hauling coal for their profitability.

Probably companies which mine urnanium would be close seconds.

Just about any alternative energy company I would think would have to go out of business. With the exception of those involved in energy storage for transportation.

Course’ these are just my opinions. Worth what you paid for them.

Yes, those are the obvious immediate competitors. But it might be that the coal-burning plants could get subsidized to pump their CO2 output into the atmosphere to combat Global Cooling, even though the heating effect would be trivial.

Picture this: FF announces that it has successfully tested a p-B11 generator, and is gearing up to produce and license them to all comers.

As an existing or potential stock market investor, how much of your money are you going to leave/put in oil, automotive, transportation, or similar shares? If you own, say, $1M of Exxon, how much will it be worth tomorrow?

It would, of course, take years to build out the FF infrastructure to replace power plants and so on, but just knowing that oil has no future will hammer the value of MAJOR players on the world financial scene. Stock prices for many business types will plummet, and the “money” will have simply vanished.

When FF is proven, where would/will you/others invest?

FF-related stuff, of course. And electric utilities. Any industry that uses energy. Energy conversion: With sufficient energy, you can make gasoline from CO2 and waste water. Oil market prices will fall more slowly than oil futures, and consumption might fall very gradually. FF might save the SUV.

Unless it turns out you can fit FF into an iPod, fuel cells will be with us forever. It’s just that FF will be producing the cell fuel.

So, basically anything that does not produce, market, or make production equipment for many other forms of energy.

Actually it’s horribly ironic that the market has been crashed by a phony credit derivatives bubble. Now, revitalization in 5-7 years through an FF boom may be the best hope for the economy. God knows if the country will be recognizable or functional by that time, what with the massive subversion and government takeover under way.